18 Chapter 18 :
Low Orbit, Maradisaè IIIa, Moon, 3rd of March 2119.
UNS Adjudicator, Admiral's office.
Time, 19:02
Admiral Brander Thraile
The Admiral frantically paced his cramped office. He couldn't believe the New Horizon's officer's had escaped. Unfortunatly, John was nowhere at hand when the situation was underway, he only appeared, very disgruntled, ten minutes after the situation had been resolved and they had escaped.
He was so tired. He had been awake for just over 17 hours. He had been trained to resist sleepiness because a battle could potentially last days. They rarely did, thankfully. Most often a battle would last from fifteen minutes to an hour because of the devastation a single ship could unleash. A battleship such as the Adjudicator could most likely utterly cripple an enemy destroyer in a single volley, and another battleship would be sevearly damaged. Even destroyers, depending on the varient, annihilate each other in mere minutes. They had nothing that would stop a round before it hit their armor, unless a lucky CWIS shot shattered it. But that was as likely as, as the saying goes, 'Hitting a bullet with a smaller bullet, while wearing a blindfold, riding a horse.'
Suddenly, Stayin' Alive began playing from his desk. Confused, he pulled up his inbox, there was a new message labled orders. It came from command. He opened it. The music stopped.
He saw the name at the top of the message. Rear Admiral Alexis Picard. Of course it would be him to attach that particular song to a message of importance. That man lived in the 1980s, despite that being nearly a hundred and fourty years ago.
It read :
Admiral Thraile, Brander.
You are hereby ordered to hold position out of line of fire of the enemy. Geological reports indicate a wonderful new industial opportunity. You must hold until reinforcements arrive. Do not worry, they are on their way as we speak.
These task groups include :
- 1st Armored Corps (3,456)
- 1st Infantry Army (442,368)
- 2nd Infantry Army (442,368)
- 1st Mechanised Army (442,368)
- 1st Motorized Army (442,368 / 9,216)
- 1st Anti-Aircraft Division (1,728)
- 1st Artillery Division (1,728)
- 2nd Minesweeper Flotilla
- 3rd Minesweeper Flotilla
- Commodore Joel Daschner's Carrier Group (360)
- Commodore Issac Mercer's Carrier Group (360)
- Commodore Aleksandr Dimitrievitch's Carrier Group (360)
- Rear Admiral Alexis Picard's Task Group
- Rear Admiral Elija Dornier's Task Group
- Rear Admiral Anouk Lortie's Task Group
- Rear Admiral Bart Samuelson's Task Group
- Rear Admiral Xiang Cheng's Task Group
- Admiral of the Fleet Freya Marklund's Sol Defense Fleet
- A replacement vessel for every ship you have lost :
- 2 Jaguar Class Destroyers
- 1 Rhino Class Battleship
More soldiers and vessels are mobilising, should you have need of them. They will arrive to shore up the defences we expect you to have in place by then. Until then, this rapid reaction force should be enough.
All army forces will be placed under Field Marshall Keith Down immediatly upon his arrival in EX-5429.
All navy forces will be placed under Admiral of the Fleet Freya Marklund immediatly upon her arrival in EX-5429.
Your force will henceforth be known as Task Force Xeno (ground forces included). Await the arrival of the rest of the Task Force.
Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) : 4hrs 35mins 27secs
Disbelievingly, he read it again. His eyes stopped over the name Freya Marklund. She was a legend. She'd won more battles than any other Admiral ever. She was just out of her prime and in what she called, retirement. Admiral of the Sol Defence Fleet. The single most powerful Task Group of ships avaliable to the UNSF. Most prototype ships, the best there are, including the UNS Sol Invictus, a one-of-a-kind Super-Dreadnought and the Flagship of the UNSF Usually this ship was never deployed, but it seemed they were willing to make an exeption.
Wether this was fortuitous news, or more of the grave kind, he wasn't sure. The deployment of the Sol Defence Fleet was rare at best. That coupled with the deployment of the largest combined fleet since The Divide was unheard of.
Thraile put his head in his hands. Industrial opportunity. That must be some opportunity on this planet. They were deploying nigh on two million men. Along with countless tanks, artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns. What kind of opportunity would trigger such an aggressive response. They must have heard what he'd expected to find here, and how he had swore they would be hostile if they were. And now he thought, they were both scared of the aliens and desperate to gain access to that planet.
He gave up thinking. What was going to happen was going to happen. It was all in Marklund's hands now. She would deal with this, not him. All he'd do, was keep his ships in line and follow orders, simple.
He began prepparing himself for the arrival of his superior, as well as the Rear Admirals who he did outrank, but he had welcomed the chance to lead a smaller force than normal. Normally he would be in command of almost 750 ships, but such numbers had not been deployed in decades.
In any case, over two hundred vessels were being deployed, alongside just under one and a half thousand fighter craft. The sheer numbers involved were breathtaking. And even still he thought, is it enough?
